


nobody can save you now

by Quentanilien



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Stream of Consciousness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-22
Updated: 2014-09-25
Packaged: 2018-02-18 09:20:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,237
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2343290
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Quentanilien/pseuds/Quentanilien
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Miles apart in their very different prisons, Clarke and Bellamy still give each other the strength to keep fighting.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Clarke drifts in and out of sleep.

When she's awake, there's little to do but pace the confines of the room. It's too white, it's too bright, it's too sterile. It makes her head hurt. She's cleaner than she's been in her whole life—pristine, really—but she finds herself wishing for the grubbiness of dirt under her fingernails. If she had a handful of mud and berries at her disposal, she'd paint the room in earth tones. Mar the disturbing spotlessness of it, and maybe that would stop her from feeling like the walls are closing in on her slowly.

She thinks she might be going crazy.

She hopes she isn't.

She studies the _Starry Night_ painting on the wall, studies it until it's emblazoned on the back of her eyelids when she closes them. She thinks it's the original. It's precious. At first she won't get too close, afraid even to breathe on it. Eventually, her reverence falls away, and she puts her face up next to it, studies the swirls of the brush strokes, the vividness of color. Still later, something comes over her—a mix of rebellion and awe—and she runs her fingers over it, hands following the path van Gogh's did centuries before. She picks it apart in her mind, layer by layer, and it's beautiful.

But even a masterpiece can't do justice to the real thing. She misses the night, she misses the stars, she misses the natural heat of the sun on her skin.

She's had enough of artificial light. She'd never wanted to see it again.

She marks the passage of time by her meal deliveries, three a day through a slot in her door. A figure in a gas mask brings them. Clarke can't tell if it's a man or a woman, or even if it's the same person. Despite all that protection, they seem overly cautious, leaning away from the door slot like she could poison them with just her breath.

She knows only two things: she's in the Mount Weather quarantine ward and Monty Green is alive.

They have pantomimed conversations through their windows, and she learns three more things. He'd been there for five meals before she arrived. He'd counted fifty-eight delinquents being brought in past his door, besides Clarke. And Bellamy and Finn were not among them.

She tires of the conversations quickly. It's a painfully slow method of communication, and she always was terrible at charades. Sometimes, as she paces her room, she sees his hopeful face pressed to the window, and she ignores it. She's suffering too much. She wants to be selfish.

No one comes in to replace her IV. But she suspects they drug her dinner, or she'd never sleep at night.

Finn fills her thoughts by day. So many deaths weigh on her shoulders, but if she focuses just on him she thinks the guilt constricting her lungs might be bearable.

She's wrong.

The others are dead because they were protecting all the delinquents. Finn is dead because he was protecting Bellamy. For her.

Bellamy was going to die either way, she realizes now. The only thing she succeeded in doing was killing Finn along with him.

She vomits up her lunch in the toilet. She smears her dinner on the wall instead of eating it, swirling it into abstract patterns, beet juice running down her hands like blood.

She lets it dry on her skin instead of washing it off in the sink.

Finn fills her thoughts by day. But Bellamy haunts her dreams.

She thinks that's the real reason she paints her dinner on the wall. If she can't sleep, she won't have to face him.

But they might not be drugging her dinners after all. She falls asleep next to the toilet, cheek pressed against the cold tile floor.

Bellamy sprawls across the white couch, feet thrown carelessly over one armrest. His hands leave gunpowder residue on the fabric, and dirt sprinkles off his boots onto the floor every time he shifts. Clarke smiles at the beautiful mess he’s making.

"Nice painting, Princess," he says sarcastically. "Is that supposed to be Spacewalker? I can see the resemblance."

She follows his eyes to the wall. A piece of potato detaches and falls to the floor. She scowls at it, then at him. "No. It's not supposed to be anything."

Bellamy smirks at her in disbelief.

"You should be nicer to him," Clarke says wearily. "He died trying to save your life."

Bellamy snorts. "Lot of good that did me. Just got himself killed too.” He shakes his head. “Always gotta be the hero. Always gotta be the martyr. Did you cry for both of us, or just for him?” He raises a challenging eyebrow, so sure he knows the answer.

“I didn’t cry for either of you,” Clarke whispers. “I can’t.”

It’s the truth. She’s all dried up inside, but she’s afraid if she sheds that first tear, it’ll become a deluge. Better to be dead, better to be numb.

Bellamy clutches a hand to his heart, grinning crookedly. “I’m touched, Princess.”

Clarke curls her knees up, wrapping her arms around them. “Why are you here?”

They’ve been having these conversations every night. In the back of her mind, she knows they’re not real. She’d chalked them up to sleeping medication, but that can’t be because this is the most vivid one of all. He smells like pine needles and sweat and she swears he would be warm to the touch if she was brave enough to get up and go to him.

She stays where she is.

He’s still grinning. “You tell me. You’re the one who brought me here.”

“I don’t want you here,” she says rudely.

It’s a lie, and they both know it.

Bellamy sits up and plants his dirty boots on the floor, one arm on the back of the couch and legs spread apart like he owns the place. His smile is gone.

“Don’t cry for me, Princess,” he commands, dark eyes intent upon her.

She says nothing, only stares at him, taking in every line of his face, every freckle, every flicker of expression. She’s torn. She wants to be left alone with her pain, but she’s terrified she’ll never see him again.

“They need you,” he says gravely.

Panic seizes her chest at the thought. She shakes her head stubbornly. “No,” she squeezes out, more of a croak than anything else. “They need _you_.”

Bellamy leans forward, angling his head to the side. He’s having none of that. “They don’t have me anymore,” he says bluntly. “But they’ve got you.”

She’s finding it difficult to breathe. She can’t believe he’s doing this to her, except she can, because it’s so _Bellamy_. She wants to fall asleep on the floor and never wake up, but he’s not going to let her do that. Damn him. She can’t do this on her own. “ _I_ need you,” she confesses.

His lips twitch up sadly, and his eyes are unfathomable. “No, you don’t. Not this time.”

She brushes her hair out of her face. “I don’t know what to do,” she says, and it’s almost an accusation.

“Yes, you do.” He gets up, crosses the room, crouches in front of her. She tries not to lean into him. “Why do you think I’m the one here right now, instead of Spacewalker?”

Clarke meets his eyes, just inches away from hers, and they’re heartbreakingly soft set against the determined lines of his face. And that’s when she realizes.

In her sorrow, Finn is a crutch. Bellamy is a weapon.

“Nobody can save you now, Clarke. Nobody but you.”

Something sparks inside of her at the words, a little flame that burns all the deadness away, ignites all the numb pieces inside of her, and grows so rapidly she can hardly contain it.

The change must show on her face, because Bellamy’s smirk returns, a trace of pride in his voice when he says, “There she is.”

“What do I use?” she asks, tone no longer helpless, but steely.

Bellamy’s smirk turns fond, and he leans in closer to tuck her hair behind her ear, thumb brushing against her cheek. Her eyes never leave his, and she leans into his hand. Seconds pass, then he shifts his hand upwards the tiniest bit and taps a finger against the side of her head, then shifts it down, just below her left shoulder, and taps it again.

Her lips curl upwards. “I can do that.”

She’s feeling bold. She brings a hand up, twines her fingers around his, right over her heart.

“I know you can,” he says, and she feels the deep rumble of his voice right through her. “Give ’em hell, Princess.” 

*             *             * 

_On the morning of her fourth day as a prisoner, Clarke wakes up on the cold floor with her hand curled over her heart._

_She scans the room. To the casual observer, it’s devoid of weapons. But she knows better now._

_The IV stand is metal and looks sturdy. It’ll do._

_Her first hit bounces off the glass window._

_Her second hit brings Monty to his window, and he gapes at her across the hall._

_Her third hit leaves a hairline crack._

_Her fourth hit lengthens the crack._

_She summons a strength she never knew she had and launches herself at the window again._

_The glass shatters._

  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is what happens when they give me two seconds of new footage. I'm not even sorry.
> 
> Title is taken from the song "Battle Cry" by Imagine Dragons. When I listen to it now, Clarke smashing her window and Bellamy running through the woods plays on an endless loop in my head. I am SO ready for season 2.


	2. Chapter 2

Bellamy drifts in and out of sleep.

When he’s awake, he feels fuzzy and disoriented. He thinks he might have a concussion. It’d make sense, after all the hits he’s taken to the head in the last few days.

Not to mention his narrow escape from a fiery death.

He’d had time to imagine it in the seconds between a huge Grounder punching him in the face and Finn yanking him out of there—what it would be like to see the rocket fire advancing on them lightning-quick from the dropship. What it would feel like to burn. He imagined it like the seventh circle of Dante’s inferno, a river of fire and boiling blood.

The one for murderers.

It seemed fitting. He’d had no strength left in him to fight it anymore.

He can’t remember running, but he knows he did, hauled to his feet by Finn and dragged bodily behind him away from camp. They hadn’t been paying attention to where they were going, stumbled over the side of a small ravine and into a creek. Maybe that’s what saved their lives, but Finn had landed too hard on his arm and Bellamy’s head had struck a rock.

He was out for hours, and after he woke up, it wasn’t their people who found them.

Bellamy’s been tied to a tree on the outskirts of a Grounder camp for two days. Finn was next to him for a while, but they took him away to the nearest village to set his broken arm.

They seem to like Spacewalker more than him. No surprise there. He knows how to be conciliatory.

Bellamy’s never learned that particular skill.

The one in charge is none other than the Grounder who nearly killed him during the battle. Bellamy doesn’t know how he escaped, but his entire left side is covered in bandages and he winces every time he moves. And he’s angry. He’s one of the few to survive.

Bellamy can’t find it in himself to be apologetic.

The rest of the camp is made up of the handful of survivors and a few people from the village. They mostly keep their distance from him, eye him like he’s the devil who rained fire and death and destruction upon them.

Maybe he is.

The burned Grounder says his name is Tristan. Bellamy sneers at that, tells him he’s about the furthest thing you could get from a knight of the round table. It’s got to be the most pathetic comeback that’s ever escaped his mouth, but it earns him a fist to the face anyway. His nose starts bleeding again, drops rolling down into his mouth and tasting like iron, and he has the strangest sensation that the blood doesn’t belong to him.

Tristan tells him the delinquents have pissed off the Mountain Men, says it like he’s quoting Octavia’s Grounder verbatim. Bellamy wants to ask for more details, but his pride won’t let him.

Tristan tells him anyway, and then Bellamy wishes he hadn’t.

They took them all away, every last surviving delinquent. They took them to their fortress up in the mountains, across a river and beyond a boundary the Grounders aren’t allowed to cross.

It sounds an awful lot like that emergency government compound Clarke was so determined to get to their first day on the ground.

Tristan questions Bellamy, asks him why the Mountain Men want the invaders alive, demands to know why they have similar technology, accuses them of being allies.

Bellamy says nothing, just curls his lip scornfully.

He thinks every last one of his ribs will be broken by the time he gets out of this.

If he gets out of this.

Tristan leans close and threatening, spits his words in Bellamy’s face. Tells him that anyone the Mountain Men want alive is someone he wants dead.

And yet, Bellamy’s still alive.

Tristan leaves sometimes, and Bellamy’s left with a couple of guards who like to kick him and a dozen others in camp who stay as far away from him as possible and avoid eye contact.

Being a prisoner is surprisingly boring, inbetween the interrogations and the beatings. So he sleeps a lot.

At first, he thinks it’s an escape. His waking hours are filled with worry, wondering how many of the delinquents survived, wondering what the Mountain Men are doing to them. Most of all, wondering where Octavia is. He’s failed to protect a hundred people in his care—and that _burns_ him inside like he swallowed some of the rocket fire. But his failure to protect his little sister is a pain beyond all compare.

_May we meet again_ , he whispers to himself sometimes, almost like a prayer.

But all he can see is the arrow in her leg and the tears in her eyes.

Octavia is every waking thought he has. But Clarke haunts his dreams.

The trunk of a tree is the worst pillow he’s ever had, but he falls asleep too easily anyway. Damn concussion.

Clarke stands in front of him, arms crossed over her chest, blocking the sun.

He squints up at her. She’s wearing white, which doesn’t make any sense because he’s only ever seen her in one pair of grubby clothes on the ground, and she looks so _clean_. Her hair is down—truly down, not pulled back in those princess twists she always wears—and sunlight frames the edges of it, making it glow like a halo.

He’s never believed in angels, but she’s the closest he’s ever going to get.

“Taking a walk in the woods, Princess?” he jokes. He glances down and sees her feet are bare. That’s impractical.

“Bellamy,” she says in that husky tone that he likes to pretend doesn’t send strange jolts of electricity through his veins.

“Spacewalker’s that way.” He jerks his head in the direction of the village. “He’s a real hero. Saved my life. You should probably go give him his reward.”

He doesn’t know why he sounds so bitter.

Clarke frowns. “I’m no reward,” she snaps.

Good. Maybe if she gets angry, she’ll go away and leave him to sleep in peace.

She looks down at her bare toes. “I’m sorry.”

“Got nothing to be sorry for,” he mumbles.

Her eyes move back up to his face and she has that familiar, stubborn set to her chin again. “I’m sorry for closing the door on you.”

Bellamy tries for a lopsided smile. “Did what you had to do, Princess. Don’t apologize for it.”

Clarke frowns again, two little worry lines appearing between her eyebrows. She sits down right in front of him on the ground, cross-legged, so close he has to move a little to make room for her.

“What are you still doing here, Bellamy?” she demands, never one to shy away from confronting him.

He sighs as heavily as his bruised body will allow. “What do you think, Princess?” He tugs at the ropes around his wrists, across his chest. “I’m a little tied up at the moment.”

Her eyebrows rise in disbelief and she has a strange little smile on her face. Something tells him it’s not because of his lame joke. “Wrong,” she says.

Now Bellamy’s eyebrows shoot up. “Excuse me?”

“You’re still here because you’re punishing yourself.” Her eyes are such a piercing blue in the sunlight that it’s difficult to meet them.

He shifts as much as the ropes will allow him and says nothing.

“Stop it,” she says fiercely, and pokes him in the leg. He looks at her finger so he can avoid her gaze.

“Are you ever going to see Octavia again if you keep this up?” she challenges.

His eyes snap back to her face resentfully.

She leans forward. She smells like soap and sunlight. He tries not to breathe it in, afraid he’s becoming addicted to a hallucination.

One of her eyebrows quirks up. “Do you know where Finn is?”

“I just told you—” he begins sourly.

She interrupts him. “Do you know where your people are? Do you know where I am?” She breathes the last few words softly and leans even closer to him.

He swallows hard. “Yes.”

She straightens a little, looking satisfied. “Then do something about it.”

“I can’t,” he whispers brokenly, a little ashamed of himself.

Clarke’s eyes blaze blue as the hottest part of a flame. “We need you. _I_ need you. Nobody’s coming to save you, Bellamy. Only you.”

“I can’t do this by myself,” he chokes out, and he knows she’ll understand that he’s not talking about escaping.

She reaches up a hand, swipes a thumb across his lip to clear off the dried blood. She feels warm and alive and he can’t believe she’s not actually there.

Her eyes are softer now, sympathy shining through them, and she smiles slightly, leaning forward to press her lips to his ear. “So come get me, Bellamy.”

He doesn’t stop to contemplate why, but it’s those five words that put the fight back in him. He closes his eyes, feeling the pain in his body shifting from dull complacency to sharp, directed anger.

He’s not a broken man anymore, but a cornered animal.

*             *             *

_On his fourth day as a prisoner, Bellamy’s eyes snap open. Clarke’s not there, but the ghost of her touch remains._

_No one’s watching him but his guard. He croaks a request for water._

_It’s so easy he’s almost ashamed of himself._

_He slips the guard’s knife out of its sheath while he’s drinking, then headbutts him in one fluid movement, flipping the knife between his fingers to slice through the ropes, slicing into his hand a little as well, but he doesn’t even feel it._

_He slips out of the ropes binding him to the tree a second later, kicking the disoriented guard in the head and pulling the spear out of his hands as he goes._

_He’s bolting headlong through the sunlit forest before anyone even notices he’s gone._

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I swear I read something months ago that hinted Tristan was still alive, but I can't remember where. And then, lo and behold, after I'd already written this, a promotional photo of him came out yesterday. I feel so validated. And I'm like 80% sure everybody's favorite brotp Finnamy is going to cross paths with him very quickly.
> 
> Also, writing this chapter kind of reduced me to a sobbing mess in the corner for many, many reasons all relating to Bellamy. If I did the same to you, I'm sorry and tell me all about it.


End file.
